E422 








. S5. (,0 ' o ^ ^ 
1^ *\s<^:^^f^ -P^ 



^".A 



,^ -^^ 









^O 



,<!►' 






^ V o 






t^ 



^•' 



^oV' 






'3' 



> 



'J>> 



•'<-^^^ 



'•><^^ 
.^^^^. 



V 



.0^ 



AN 



ADDRESS, 



DELIVERED BY REQUEST OF THE STUDENTS OF 



DARTMOUTH COLLEGE, 



HANOVER, N. H., SEPT. 5, 1850, 



(iDn tl)j umim nf tjiB hatlj nf 



CtEN. Z. TAYLOR, 



LATE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



BY EDWIN D. SANBORN, 

PROFESSOR OF THE LATIN LANGUAGE, &c. IN DART. COLL. 



HANOVER : 

PRINTOTt AT THE DARTMOUTH PHE?fi. 
1850. 



■S/^ 



At a meeting of the students, held in the Chapel, after the close of the 
Exercises, the following resolution was adopted. 

Resolved, That the Students of Dartmouth College return to Prof. San- 
born their thanks for his eloquent discourse pronounced before the College 
to-day — and request him to furnish a copy of the same for publication. 

The undersigned were then appointed a committee to present the reso- 
Intion. MORRIS LAMPREY, 

EDWIN PIERCE, 
JOHN A. LAMSON, 

SAMUEL W. DANA. 

Hanover, Sept. 5, 1850. 



ADDRESS. 



The sentiment, of Pericles, uttered in commemoration of the 
virtues of his countrymen who fell during the first year of the 
Peloponnesian war, finds a warm response in every generous 
heart. " Those men," said he, " who have sacrificed their 
lives for the public good, have every one of them received a 
praise that will never decay, a sepulchre that will always be 
most illustrious — not that in which their bones lie moulder- 
ing, but that in which their l"ame is preserved to be, on every 
occasion, when honor is associated with word or deed, eter- 
nally remembered. This whole earth is the sepulchre of 
illustrious men ; nor is it the inscription^ on the columns of 
their native soil alone that show their merit, but the memorial 
of them better than all inscriptions in every foreign nation, 
reposited more durably in universal remembrance than on 
their tombs." 

Such honor would the peerless orator of Athens confer 
upon the humblest patriot who died in his country's defence, 
"though he might be inferior to others in every virtue but 
that of valor;" and, who will presume to question the correct- 
ness of his position or the justice of the tribute which he 
awards ? 

We are so constituted that we cannot but admire human 
greatness, whether it be the product of the head, the heart, or 
the hands. We pay instinctive homage to superiority of in- 
tellect ; we reverence the exhibition of noble and generous 
affections ; we admire skill and dexterity in works of art. 
The mightiest heroes of Grecian story once trembled beneath 
the rod of the gymnast, admired the feats of the athlete and 
coveted more eagerly the honors of the pala?stra and the hip- 
podrome, than the glories of the tented field. Such dis- 



plays of sirength, fleetness and dexterity still attract the atten- 
tion and elicit the praise of the multitude, but they bring no 
unfading laurels ; they secure no lasting honor. True valor, 
however, has lost none of its charms with the lapse of centu- 
ries. Cool and undaunted courage upon the battle-field still 
extorts reluctant homage even from those who look, with hor- 
ror, upon the results of war, and who, like the illustrious 
Wellington, believe victory itself to be a calamity which can 
be only equaled by defeat. But when with unquestioned 
valor, we find associated those moral virtues which adorn 
domestic life and give new lustre to exalted station, we love 
to venerate the memory of departed greatness. Such was 
the character of the hero and statesman whose premature 
death we to-day deplore and whose spotless reputation we 
delight to cherish. 

" Multis ille bonis flel)ili3 occidit." 
Zachary Taylor was no ordinary man. His greatness was not 
the result of chance. His honors were the merited reward of 
forty years of successful public service. His fame was the 
matured fruit of a life of ceaseless toil ; of honorable and hon- 
ored effort. Success is not always a proof of superior wis- 
dom in planning or skill in executing; still, that man who 
adopts his measures prudently and cautiously and executes 
them with energy and perseverance has a right to expect suc- 
cess. " Prudence,-' says Cousin, "is a virtue, and therefore, 
among other reasons, it is one of the elements of success ; 
imprudence is a vice, and therefore, in war, it scarcely ever 
meets with success ; courage is a virtue which has a right to 
the recompense of victory ; weakness is a vice and inasmuch 
as it is so, it is always punished and beaten." The com- 
mander who spends his life in the tent and field of conflict, 
and never loses a battle, or allows himself to be circumvent- 
ed by the foe, may claim pre-eminence over his peers, not 
merely in prudence and courage, but in force of character 
and strength of intellect. The world has known but few 
such heroes. General Taylor had a clear head and an hon- 
est heart, a strong iulellect and generous affections. He had 



no great vices, like Cccsar, lo be cloaked by a single virtue. 
He needed not, like Marcellus and Hastings, to recount his 
patriotic deeds to soothe the public indignation at his acts of 
wanton cruelty- He feared not, like Camillus and Marlbo- 
rough, a judicial investigation of his frauds upon the public 
treasury; nor did he, like Bonaparte, sacrifice his domestic 
affections upon the altar of unhallowed ambition. In all the 
relations of life he was a virtuous and honest man. His 
spotless integrity was his crowning excellence. Herein he 
stands, with the venerated Washington, almost alone in the 
world's history. Turn over the annals of forty centuries and 
where will you find a virtuous warrior? Begin at the begin- 
ning and scrutinize the characters of heroes from Nimrod to 
Napoleon, and tell me, who are the warriors that you can 
love as well as admire? Many renowned commanders 
have been distinguished for some single virtue which has 
often been buried and obscured by a host of odious vices. 
But history shows us no hero who can be compared with 
our American generals. 

As civilization advances, men demand higher qualifica- 
tions in their leaders. The fleetness of foot, the dexterity of 
hand, the beauty of form, and the physical energy which se- 
cured admiration in the ages of heroism and chivalry are not 
now even classed among the qualifications of a successful 
warrior. That inflexible severity which spared neither sex nor 
age in the captured city, that Roman sternness which exact- 
ed the life of a disobedient son, ill accord with the pacific 
tendencies of our age. With the increase of knowledge and 
the advancement of morality, the martial spirit has lost much 
of its atrocity and the horrors of war have been greatly miti- 
gated. It would be no commendation of a general now to 
affirm that he was a man of blood ; that be was as unrelent- 
ing as the grave. It would be equally futile to say that he 
was like Achilles : — 

" Impiger, iracundus, Inexorabilis, acer ;" 
that he scorned the restraints of law and arrogated every 
thing to arms. 



The most renowned of the Grecian heroes is denominated, 
par excellence, iibda^ Uvc kx''^}.tvc, "the swilt-fooled Achilles,'* 
and the highest praise that could be awarded to a brave sol- 
dier was, Boriv dyadoa, that he was good for the rush, ready at 
the battle-cry. Ulysses, styled iroXi/innc odvaaevc, the man of 
many wiles, was the Homeric type of intellect unaccompa- 
nied by the highest degree of heroic valor, while Ajax exhib- 
ited the most undaunted courage without the prudence nec- 
essary to render it useful to his comrades. Diomedes dis- 
played almost superhuman strength, but had no capacity to 
control it. 

" Him neither rocks can crush nor steel can wound 
Whom Ajax fells not on the ensanguined ground." 

The heroes of Homer were sturdy warriors. They did 
nothing by halves. They fought like amateurs ; they ate 
like gourmands; they drank like topers; still they were nei- 
ther fiends, gluttons nor drunkards. On the other hand, they 
were equally removed from the courtesy, the sobriety and 
integrity of a Wellington, a Washington, or a Taylor. 
When the republics of Greece were in their glory, the gen- 
eral became subordinate to the statesman, and intellect was 
prized above strength. Oratory was more powerful than 
physical prowess. External accomplishments yielded to far- 
seeing policy. Men who could sway the multitude by» their 
eloquence, in the agora, were more highly honored than those 
who, like Diomedes or Ajax, could prostrate the strongest an- 
tagonist upon the battle field. But even in the palmiest days 
of Greece, men were not honored so much for their integrity 
as for their sagacity. The motives appealed to were person- 
al or national. The glory of the State and the interest of the 
individual, outweighed all considerations of honor, truth and 
justice. Glory was their aim, and the State was the kind 
deity that ennobled its defenders. The man who could pro- 
pose the most feasible measures for exalting the State, 
though it were by fraud, by force, or. by oppression, w^as, for 
the moment, the popular favorite, whether it were the wily 
Themistocles or the just Aristides ; the prudent Nicias or the 



clownish Cleon. The Greeks did not ask (or justice or right, 
but for success ; and, it mattered little to them whether glory 
was won for them by a wise man or a fool ; by an honest 
man or a knave; by a man of true valor or a mere pretend- 
er. But we have fallen on better days. We honor our he- 
roes not because they love war and seek it, but because when 
their country calls them to engage in it, they know how to 
end it. Taylor, like Washington, was emphatically a man 
of peace. His language publicly expressed was : — " War, 
at all times, and under all circumstances, is a national ca- 
lamity." 

" His life was gentle, 

And the elements so mixed in him 

That nature might stand up, 

And say to all the world, 

This was a man." 

His heart was as simple and as full of the kindest sympa- 
thies as that of a child. He loved home and its endearments. 
He loved peace, and he knew how to conquer it. He went 
reluctantly to the battle-field, and bore back the honors of 
war with a sad heart. Writing to one whose gallant son 
had fallen, at the very moment of victory, he says : — ■" When 
I miss his familiar face, I can say, with truth, that I feel no 
exultation in our success." This one fact reveals to us a 
truth which every page of the world's history tends to con- 
firm ; that mankind have made progress in virtue and moral- 
ity, as well as in art and intelligence. The annals of time 
do not furnish so many virtuous warriors as the brief history 
of our own country. Even patriotism, the most common of 
heroic virtues, was but a transient sentiment in the breast of 
a Grecian warrior. The hero of Marathon sacrificed his 
country's honor to private revenge. The most gigantic in- 
tellect that republican Greece ever reared, the author of Athe- 
nian independence, the presiding genius, at the battles of Ar- 
temisum and Salamis, when his country proved ungrateful, 
joined her relentless foe. The victor of Plataea from mo- 
tives of ambition, courted the favor of " the great king," and 
died a traitor, Greece was. ruined by the men who led her 



8 

armies, Pericles, the most illustrious of her statesmen, 
sought fopeign wars to keep the people employed and pre 
vent mutiny at home. The magistrate who should so con- 
duct, in our age, would receive the execration of the whole 
civilized world. Recall, for a moment, some of the much- 
praised deeds of men of other times. Think of Agamem- 
non consenting to sacrifice his beloved Iphigenia to appease 
an imaginary goddess, or of the Messenian Aristodemus, 
voluntarily butchering his own daughter to satisfy the sup- 
posed demands of a lying oracle; think of the Roman Vir- 
ginius plunging a knife into the heart of his child to shield 
her from the lust of the chief magistrate of the republic. 
These deeds received the unqualified commendation of the 
wisest men of antiquity. How would the perpetrators of 
such atrocities be treated in the nineteenth century? Who 
would venerate the memory of Zachary Taylor, if it should 
appear that he had, under any circumstances, lifted his arm 
to strike down an unoffending woman ? Especially, if that 
woman were his own daughter ? The actions and charac- 
ters of men, whom nations, in periods remote from each oth- 
er, have delighted to honor, indicate, with as much precision 
as the hands upon a dial-plate, the progress of mankind in 
morality and virtue. In the first Punic war, the Romans 
were alarmed by a prophecy, current among the people, that 
the city was destined to be taken by the Gauls and Greeks. 
The sacred books were consulted, and the hierophants de- 
creed that the emero-ency required an extraordinary sacrifice; 
that two Gauls and two Greeks must be buried alive in the 
forum boarium. The decree was executed, and the wisest 
and best men of Rome approved of the offering; nay more, 
there was not found in later ages, a historian or a philoso- 
pher who ever condemned it. Suppose Zachary Taylor, in 
order to allay a popular panic, had buried alive, in some pub- 
lic square of Monterey, two Mexicans and two Camanches? 
Would not the whole civilized world, with united voice, 
have cried out against him as a madman or a monster? 
What has given to modern nations a public sentiment so in- 



9 

finitely exalted above tliat oi the ancients, if it be not supe- 
riority in morality and religion ? The treatment of prisoners 
taken in war shows, with equal distinctness, the progress and 
improvement of public opinion. It was the common prac- 
tice of ancient nations to. put their prisoners to the sword or 
reduce thein to slavery ; and, it was considered unsound poli- 
cy to exchange or ransom their own counlryinen who were 
taken by the enemy. Rome, when reduced to the most im- 
minent peril of utter annihilation, after the battle of Cannte, 
peremptorily refused to ransom her citizens from Hannibal 
and chose to purchase and arm slaves to defend her walls, 
rather than redeem her captive sons. Even those who es- 
caped alive, from the field of carnage, were subjected to pub- 
lic disgrace and exiled from their homes to serve, during life^ 
in a foreign land. The cruel treatment of prisoners of war 
is evinced on every page of ancient history. I need not cite 
examples. Says Chancellor Kent, " The most refined states 
among the ancients seem to have had no conception of the 
moral obligations of justice and humanity between nations, 
and there was no such thing in existence as the science of 
international law. They regarded strangers and enemies as 
nearly synonymous, and considered foreign persons and 
property as lawful prize. Their laws of war and peace were 
barbarous and deplorable. It was the received opinion, that 
Greeks, even as between their own cities and states, were 
bound by no duties nor by any moral law, without compact ;; 
and that prisoners taken in war, had no rights, and might 
lawfully be put to death or sold into perpetual slavery, with 
their wives and children.'^' « * * » fhe Roman juris- 
prudence, in its most cultivated state, was a very imperfect 
transcript of the precepts of natural justice on the subject of 
national duty. It retained strong traces of ancient rudeness, 
from the want of the Christian system of morals. We find 
the barbarous doctrine still asserted, that prisoners of war be- 
came slaves, jure gentium, and even in respect to foreign na- 
tions with whom the Romans were at peace, but had no par- 
ticular alliance, it is laid down in the Digests, that whoever 



10 

passed from one country to the other became immediately, a 
slave." * * * * " The progress of moderation and hu- 
manity in the treatment of prisoners is to be imputed to the 
influence of Christianity and of conventional law, establish- 
ing a general and indiscriminate exchange of prisoners, rank 
for rank, and giving protection to cartel ships for that pur- 
pose." Gen. Taylor in one of his dispatches to our govern- 
ment, dated Point Isabel, May 12, 1846, says : " I have ex- 
changed a sufficient number of prisoners to recover the com- 
mand of Capt. Thornton. The wounded prisoners have 
been sent to Matamoras — the wounded officers on parole. 
General La Vega and a few other officers have been sent to 
New Orleans, having declined a parole and will be reported 
to Major General Gaines. I am not conversant with the 
usages of war, in such cases, and beg that such provision 
may be made for those prisoners as may be authorized by 
law. Our own prisoners have been treated with great kind- 
ness by the Mexican officers." A single sentence from the 
General's defence of his armistice with the enemy after the 
battle of Monterey, shows the same humane, noble and gen- 
erous heart. '• The consideration of humanity, said he, was 
present to my mind, during the conference which led to the 
convention and outweighed, in my judgment, the doubtful 
advantages to be gained by a resumption of the attack upon 
the town." He neither wished to destroy the city nor its in- 
habitants, provided he could gain his object by measures 
which humanity as well as justice would approve. How 
different the conduct from that of the Scipios, who carried 
war to the gates of Carthage, or from the recorded opinion 
of Cato, the most exalted moralist of Rome, of whom it is 
said, that while the Carthaginian war was pending, he never 
gave his opinion in the Senate on any subject whatever, 
without adding this atrocious remark, " censeo delendam esse 
Carthaginem." 

Pericles, in his funeral oration, says of those who had fal- 
len in battle, " one passion there was in their minds much 
stronger than their attachment to the delights which peaceful 



11 

and alHuent life bestows, stronger than the hope that poverty 
misfht be exchanged for affluence, — the desire of vens'eance 
upon their enemies. Regarding this as the most honorable 
prize of dangers, they boldly rushed towards the mark to glut 
revenge and then to satisfy those secondary passions." If 
we could say nothing better than this respecting our country- 
men who served in our armies, should w^e wish to speak of 
them at all? To ascribe to our patriots the passions of wild 
beasts or the malice of fiends, would ill-befit the style of eu- 
logy or the exhibition of sorrow. In the words of another, 
" Great names stand not alone for great deeds; they stand 
also for great virtves, and in doing them worship we elevate 
ourselves. Such names are the truest and most genuine 
wealth any nation can possess, and the more she has of them 
the more abundant are her treasures." In moral worth, 
American warriors have no superiors; in valor and generos- 
ity, they have but few peers. Our country has her statesmen 
loo, whose names are mentioned, with honor and reverence, 
wherever genius is admired or elo(iuencc hath an eulogist. 
In selecting the chief Magistrate of this great nation, the 
claims of these eminent statesmen were postponed to those 
of the veteran warrior. A grateful people raised the hero of 
Buena Vista to the highest post of honor which any nation 
can bestow. The man was not inferior to the station. Gen- 
eral Taylor always bore himself witli dignity and grace in 
every position of life. As he rose in rank, he filled each suc- 
cessive office with the ease and manly bearing of one born 
to command. What Macaulay said of Cromwell is equally 
true of him. " By the confession even of his enemies, he 
exhibited, in his demeanor, the simple and natural nobleness 
of a man neither ashamed of his origin, nor vain of his ele- 
vation ; of a man who had found his proper place in society, 
and who felt secure that he was competent to fill it." 

The day has passed, when Ministers of State are elevated 
to power by the caprices of courtesans or the whims of mon- 
archs. The people, either directly or indirectly, control the 
choice of their executive officers. Monarchs. with few ex- 



15 

ceplions, are now compelled to listen to the voice of their 
subjects or to boio before their strength. Success, in an offi- 
cial career, is theretbre presumptive proof, that the incumbent 
had the requisite qualifications for the station. Fortune is 
not now so blind as when she stood upon the rolling stone, 
near the entrance of life, as portrayed by the graphic pen of 
Cebes, She has lost the bandages from her eyes, and the 
light of reason is now poured upon her unclouded vision. 
She now selects her favorites. Even in the days of Tacitus, 
a candidate for public office was sometimes pointed out by 
the multitude, "quia par videbatur. Hand semper errat 
fama, aliquando et elegit.''^ But no man in our country is 
installed in office, because the acclamations of the fickle 
multitude sound his name in the unwilling ears of a tyrant. 
Our candidates are selected by a free and intelligent peo- 
ple, and exalted to olRce by the silent but irresistible power 
of the ballot box. So was Zachary Taylor elected ; and 
who will say that the people have been disappointed in their 
man? Who will say that he has not, in every respect, ex- 
ceeded their own estimate of his abilities and his worth ? 
" It will be a great mistake," said Mr. Webster in the Senate? 
"to suppose that the late President of the United States 
owed his advancement to the civil trust or his great accepta- 
bifity with the people to military talent or ability alone. I 
believe that, associated with the highest admiration for these 
qualities possessed by him, there was spread throughout the 
community a high degree of confidence and faith in his in- 
tegrity and honor and uprightness as a man." Referring to 
his entire freedom from all suspicion of sinister views in 
seeking the presidency he adds : " He has now left to the 
people of his country a legacy in this— he has left them a 
bright example which addresses itself with peculiar force to 
the young and rising generation ; for it tells that there is a 
path to the highest degree of renown— straight, onward, with- 
out change or deviation. 

— " Cui pudor, et justitia? soror 

[ncorrupta fides, nndaquc Veritas, 

Quando uUum invcnient parcm V" 



13 

But a few months since, the generous, high-minded and 
honorable statesman whose death we to-day commemorate, 
received the highest tribute of admiration which a grateful 
people could bestow. He enjoyed a triumph more enno- 
bling, more illustrious lliat the "mistress of the world" ever 
decreed to the bravest of her consuls or noblest of her Ceb- 
sars. He sat enthroned in the affections of an intelligent 
and virtuous constituency. Millions of hearts leaped for joy, 
when ihe brave old hero grasped the helm of State. Thou- 
sands resorted to the Capitol to witness his first official acts. 
They looked with conscious pride upon his iron frame, un- 
boAved by age or toil — upon his open and manly counten- 
ance, which integrity had marked for her own ; upon his ven- 
erable brow, silvered with the frost of many winters, and 
they all shouted, honor to the man of the people's choice ; 
honor to the man who has tilled the measure of his country's 
glory. During the brief period of his official career, he has 
given proof of a devotion to duty which no opposition could 
abate, of an attachment to the Union and to the Constitution 
which neither threats nor partizan aspersions could shake. 
By his firm determination to maintain the peace of the coun- 
try, by his freedom from sectional partialities, by his consci- 
entious administration of the duties of his office, he has 
demonstrated to his countrymen the principle which he an- 
nounced before his election, "that he would be the president 
of the nation and not of a party." Where perfect freedom 
of speech exists as in our own country, no man's motives 
will escape unquestioned ; no man's character is proof 
against detraction. President Taylor has borne the assaults 
of excited partizans and misguided zealots in uncomplain- 
ing silence. The remarks which fell from his lips, during 
his last illness, show that he has suffered though he has not 
remonstrated. " I did not expect," said he, " to encounter 
what has beset me since my elevation lo the Presidency. 
God knows that I have endeavored to fulfil wliat I conceived 
lo be an honest duty. But I have been mistaken. My mo- 
tives have been misconstrued and mv feeling.- most grossly 



14 

outraged." These are ihe words of a dying man. The ap- 
proach ol death alone unsealed his lips. While health and 
strength sustained him, his heroism in enduring the fiery tri- 
als of his station was as conspicuous as his courage upon 
the battle-field. 

" What makes a hero 'i am heroic mind 
Expressed in action; in endurance proved. 
And if tliere be pre-eminence of right 
Derived through pain well-suli'ered to the lieight 
Of I'ank heroic, 'tis to bear unmoved 
Not toil — not risk, not rage of sea or wind, 
Not the brute fury of barbarians blind, 
But worse — ingratitude and poisonous darts 
Launched by the country he had served and loved. 
This, with a free unclouded spirit jHire, 
This in the strength of silence to endure, 
A dignity to noble deeds imparts, 
Beyond the gauds and tra2:)pings of renown, 
This is the hero's complement and crown." 

But he has depaiicd. Neither his fume noi his virlue.=^ 
could shield him I'rom the assaults of death. 

" Omnes codeni cogimur; omnium 
Versatur urna, serius, ocius 
Sors exitura, et nos in aiternum 
Exilium impositura cymbtB." 

The monarch of the grave pays no respect to rank or sta- 
tion. " On the eyelids of kings is the shadow of death. In 
the hearts of rulers there is fearful apprehension." The 
courage of the warrior sinks as his life-blood ebbs away. 
The heart of the hero faints within him, at the sight of his 
last foe, and his nerves of steel relax when the grasp of death 
is upon him. " Surely man in his best estate is altogether 
vanity." In Republican Rome, when a distinguished warrior 
or civilian died, gladiatorial shows and pubfic games were 
exhibited in honor of the departed. Men who had been 
long and patiently trained for the very purpose, deliberately, 
butchered each other for the amusement of the spectators. 
Aged senators, wise counsellors, gallant knights and beauti- 



15 

ful women witnessed the bloody contest and eagerly coveted 
the sight. 

In the days of Imperial Rome, when a Csesar died, the fac- 
tions of rival candidates filled the city with tumults and l)lood- 
shed, and frequently devasted it with conflagrations. In mod- 
ern times, when a monarch dies, the nation is smitten with a 
panic ; stocks fall,commcrce is interrupted,fac1ions are formed; 
and the standing army is summoned to keep the peace. Then 
princes, nobles, and the officers of Church and State " in hol- 
low circumstance of woe," celebrate the obsequies of the de- 
ceased, while perhaps the populace, the starved and oppressed 
multitude raise the standard of rebellion and shout reform and 
liberty. They play their part upon the public theatre,for a brief 
space, till the minions of hereditary power silence their clam- 
ors, by the brazen heralds of modern war, and an imbecile son 
wades through blood to his father's throne. But ve have 
chang-edall that. When the good President is removed by the 
hand of God from the scene of his duties and trials, the people 
cry, " my father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horse- 
men thereof." And when they see him no more they put on 
robes of mourning, and pray that the mantle of the good old 
man may rest upon his successor. Their churches, their 
ships and even their cities wear the ensigns of national 
mourning. But no strife ensues ; no blood is shed. No 
breast is pierced except with bitter grief. No heart bleeds 
except with unaffected sorrow. The government changes 
hands without a jar. No plot is defeated, for none is laid ; 
no insurrection is quelled, for none is raised. No murmur 
is heard, for sorrow makes the nation dumb. What patriot 
can contemplate these facts and yet despair of the republic? 
What Christian can review the scenes of the last two months 
and not feel assured that there is still much of the salt of the 
earth and the light of the world remaining in this land ? The 
quiet and pacific substitution of a new chief magistrate, in 
the place of the late President, demonstrates that our Consti- 
tution is not that unmeaning parchment which the enemies 
of free institutions would have us believe that it is. It re- 



16 

veals to us also the iuestimnble value of the Union and its 
indispensable necessity to our peace and safety as a nation. 
Foreign nations arc much more apt to chronicle our vices 
and defects than our virtues and excellencies. The thrones 
of kings are still propped up by the slanders of our republic, 
propagated by the partizans of hereditary power. Our sec- 
tional disputes, our senatorial contests, and even the street 
brawls of our cities are eagerly repeated by the minions of 
despotism, from the cliffs of Norway to the rock of Gibraltar. 
The friends of rational freedom welcome, with equal zeal, the 
announcement of every successful struggle through which 
our country passes. By tolerating internal dissensions and 
attaching ourselves to narrow and sectional interests, we be- 
come the abettors of tyrants. By maintaining, at any ex- 
pense, the integrity of our glorious Union, we become the 
benefactors of mankind. 

The instructive example and the recorded sentiments of 
our departed President teach us to set a higher value upon 
our blood-bought institutions; they teach us to frown indig- 
nantly upon every attempt to weaken the bonds which unite 
this happy republic, and to crown with honor every well-di- 
rected effort to preserve its peace and unity. 

The life of the late President reveals to the youthful aspi- 
rant for fame and honor, the priceless value of those homely 
virtues which lie at the foundation of true greatness. Fidel- 
ity to accepted trusts, a conscientious discharge of the hum- 
blest duty which his country imposed upon him, a sacred 
and inviolable regard for truth and justice and a judicious 
employment of his time and privileges are the steps by 
which he rose to fame and glory. In youth and in age, as a 
subaltern and a general, whether storming the beleaguered 
city or sitting in the chair of State, he has ever shown him- 
self the same fearless patriot and honest man, " asking no fa- 
vor and shrinking from no responsibility." In the words of 
another, " There is no dark passage in his life which justice 
will be called upon to condemn or morality to reprove or hu- 
manity to deplore." Now that he is dead, we are allowed, 



17 

by riif canon of the Grecian sage, to pronounce him happy. 
" Potest videri etiam beatus ; incolumi dignitate, florentc 
fama, salvis adfinitatibus et amicitiis, futura eftugisse." In 
his simple and unostentatious career of duty, there are pas- 
sages of moral grandeur surpassing the creations of the epic 
muse. Think of the veteran commander, at the head of a 
mere handful of trained soldiers, in the heart of the enemy's 
country, in presence of a foe outnumbering his own troops, 
four to one ; and, what firmness of purpose, what sublimity of 
heroic daring is displayed in the simple announcement, " In 
whatever force the enemy may be, I shall fight him." When 
exposed to dangers still more appalling, when the cloud of 
war lowered with still more portentous gloom upon his path- 
way, in answer to the Mexican Dictator, who summoned 
him to surrender at discretion, he replied, with Spartan brev- 
ity and more than Spartan dignity, " General Taylor never 
surrenders." At the battle of Buena Vista, his officers ad- 
vised him to fall back, lest he should be overwhelmed by su- 
perior numbers. His reply evinced at once, his magnanim- 
ity and characteristic humanity : " My wounded are behind 
me, I shall never pass them alive." Such was the hour and 
such was the man. He has gone and left a rich legacy to 
his countrymen, in his achievements and his fame. We 
may here repeat, with great propriety, what Tacitus said of 
his beloved Agricola : " Quidquid ex eo amavimus, quidquid 
mirati sumus, manet mansurnmquc est in animis hominum, 
in aeternitate temporum, fama rerum." 



V46 






> 






^. 






^^ 



->' 



^ffij^; 



^^^' 

, ^a 



'o » » 



,< 



a V 



1 » « * " * ■<^ 



/>>j 'o % ^ A<^ 



■^ 









o5^. .^v.;:i?.0^° ^.o-^ 



•^o V^" 



<. 
















: .N^ 



t'J>' c " « 









.^-^z. 






^7 • 5,0 -Tt. 






•M^ 







/>• J?-'^ 


« - 




■ / 




* V, 


* * • A * 






.-w^ --.^ ■+ 




%^' 








r 


/^^ 

< 


*-^'% "-■ 





."^^ 



>- "^oV" 



.V' 




